Internet Speed in Alaska

[RoyMartin]

I'm cruising to Alaska on Princess in June. It will be a 14 day cruise. My first cruise ever.
I'd like to be able to at least check e-mail every day. I assume the only way to do that is by paying $15 per day for the internet package (unless bundled in with other services). The bundled packages don't make sense for me because I drink only water.
I assume that in Alaska the internet speed will be too slow for reliable Zoom meetings. That means I won't really be able to work on board. If I could work, it would be well worth the $15 per day.
Since that's probably not realistic, I need to decide if it's worth $15 per day for the entire cruise to access wifi on days at sea. If I don't sort e-mail and respond to messages on a daily basis, it really builds up. Then I could be stuck wasting time in port digging out of holes, given that there will sometimes be two straight days at sea.

Does anyone have thoughts on this? How fast is the internet on Princess in Alaska? Is it worth the cost to check e-mail? Any possibility it will work with Zoom? Please respond if you have cruised Alaska and have direct experience with the Medallion wifi. Thanks.

[Honolulu Blue]

4 hours ago, RoyMartin said:

I'm cruising to Alaska on Princess in June. It will be a 14 day cruise. My first cruise ever.
I'd like to be able to at least check e-mail every day. I assume the only way to do that is by paying $15 per day for the internet package (unless bundled in with other services). The bundled packages don't make sense for me because I drink only water.
I assume that in Alaska the internet speed will be too slow for reliable Zoom meetings. That means I won't really be able to work on board. If I could work, it would be well worth the $15 per day.
Since that's probably not realistic, I need to decide if it's worth $15 per day for the entire cruise to access wifi on days at sea. If I don't sort e-mail and respond to messages on a daily basis, it really builds up. Then I could be stuck wasting time in port digging out of holes, given that there will sometimes be two straight days at sea.

Does anyone have thoughts on this? How fast is the internet on Princess in Alaska? Is it worth the cost to check e-mail? Any possibility it will work with Zoom? Please respond if you have cruised Alaska and have direct experience with the Medallion wifi. Thanks.

I haven't cruised Alaska, but I do have Medallion experience as I have been on Princess twice in the past 15 months. My Internet experience on both ships was pretty good, and I suspect I could have done the Zoom thing had I wanted to, but neither of those ships sailed full. Reports from here and elsewhere said that speeds and reliability went down the toilet everywhere right after I stopped sailing. YMMV.

 

Also, speeds in Alaska have been a constant problem on all cruise lines, not just Princess.

 

If I were you I'd think about using cell phone access while in Alaskan ports. There's a lot of unspoiled wilderness there, but there are probably several cell phone towers near the docks. The problem is you won't dock every day and you might need an international plan for Canadian ports.

 

One last wild card is that Princess ships will eventually switch over to Starlink for their Internet. That service promises faster and more reliable access from what I've heard from ships that have it. I don't  know when it will be active on your ship.

 

I hope you get some more precise answers from others. Good luck on your cruise!

[beg3yrs]

We cruised Alaska in June of 2022 on the Royal Princess. Speeds were definitely too slow for Zoom calls but email and some browsing, while slow, was feasible.

 

There's a page buried somewhere on the in-cabin TV menu that indicates the speeds/quality you can expect on the voyage. It tells you that in the area of Victoria and Vancouver and south your speeds will be good. Don't believe it.

 

The crew uses WhatsApp for texting and my experience was that it seems to work better than regular texting when the Internet is poor. Facetime also tends to work at times when other apps fail when the Internet is slow.

 

As an aside, we just did two trips to Antarctica on the Sapphire Princess. Both times we received notes in our cabin telling us the Internet would be non-existent once the ship went south of Cape Horn. For us that wasn't the case. The Internet was still usable, even down to almost 65 degrees south, but definitely not fast.

Edited February 25, 2023 by beg3yrs

[_rusty_shackleford]

There are a quite a few areas where you will get no service due to either geography or latitude and/or what you doing get will be quite slow. It was fine for light browsing/posting to CC forums when we were there but I would certainly not count on it for any video/streaming or VPN activity.

[memoak]

On the Royal in Alaska last August. WiFi was good enough to browse and check email. Sometimes it took a little patience. 

[Shelly97060]

I have done Alaska several times. how good the internet is depends on where you are on the itinerary.  I found texting to be generally fine, emails without attachments were ok but anything with an attachment or lots of graphics were slow to load.  No way would Zoom have been reliable on any of my Alaska cruises.

[rj59]

It's okay in Alaska, not enough for reliable video chats. The northern location makes it more difficult to get reliable satellite internet, and realize you're sharing it with other ships and a lot of people onboard, particularly those who get it through the packages so use it all day, including trying to stream video. Some lines have Starlink now, and Princess ships will get it eventually. If you're going on a 14-day cruise, you're probably revisiting ports, so it's not that difficult to find a coffee shop with wifi and do work, and I can often get a workable ATT signal while in parts of Alaskan waters to check email. The beverage package includes sodas and unlimited specialty coffee and tea drinks, as well as gratuities, and any sort of cocktail can be made without alcohol, which makes the Plus price easier to justify. 

 

Another way to cover the price of internet is to buy 100 shares of CCL or CUK, which would give you a $250 credit for a 14-day cruise. Right now CUK would cost you $960, so $250 would be a 25% immediate return. Google 'Carnival Shareholder Benefit' and a pdf file will show whom to email at Princess with a brokerage statement, and you'll get a new cruise statement with the credit applied. 

[Guest ldtr]

10 hours ago, RoyMartin said:

I'm cruising to Alaska on Princess in June. It will be a 14 day cruise. My first cruise ever.
I'd like to be able to at least check e-mail every day. I assume the only way to do that is by paying $15 per day for the internet package (unless bundled in with other services). The bundled packages don't make sense for me because I drink only water.
I assume that in Alaska the internet speed will be too slow for reliable Zoom meetings. That means I won't really be able to work on board. If I could work, it would be well worth the $15 per day.
Since that's probably not realistic, I need to decide if it's worth $15 per day for the entire cruise to access wifi on days at sea. If I don't sort e-mail and respond to messages on a daily basis, it really builds up. Then I could be stuck wasting time in port digging out of holes, given that there will sometimes be two straight days at sea.

Does anyone have thoughts on this? How fast is the internet on Princess in Alaska? Is it worth the cost to check e-mail? Any possibility it will work with Zoom? Please respond if you have cruised Alaska and have direct experience with the Medallion wifi. Thanks.

Been on 7 Princess cruises since start of last year, including Alaska on Ruby. Internet speed on the Alaska cruise was by far the slowest at about 40kps. Think old dial up like speeds. Ok for email, not very good for browsing.

[RoyMartin]

Thanks so much for all the responses. This is so helpful.

[RoyMartin]

2 hours ago, rj59 said:

It's okay in Alaska, not enough for reliable video chats. The northern location makes it more difficult to get reliable satellite internet, and realize you're sharing it with other ships and a lot of people onboard, particularly those who get it through the packages so use it all day, including trying to stream video. Some lines have Starlink now, and Princess ships will get it eventually. If you're going on a 14-day cruise, you're probably revisiting ports, so it's not that difficult to find a coffee shop with wifi and do work, and I can often get a workable ATT signal while in parts of Alaskan waters to check email. The beverage package includes sodas and unlimited specialty coffee and tea drinks, as well as gratuities, and any sort of cocktail can be made without alcohol, which makes the Plus price easier to justify. 

 

Another way to cover the price of internet is to buy 100 shares of CCL or CUK, which would give you a $250 credit for a 14-day cruise. Right now CUK would cost you $960, so $250 would be a 25% immediate return. Google 'Carnival Shareholder Benefit' and a pdf file will show whom to email at Princess with a brokerage statement, and you'll get a new cruise statement with the credit applied. 

Special thanks to you, RJ. That's a great idea. I'm going to do that.